SHOW-ME WARRIOR: O. K. Armstrong of Missouri

By Martin Capages

This book is the biography of Orland Kay Armstrong, husband, father, freelance journalist, writer, publisher and United States Congressman from the 6th District of Missouri. O. K. Armstrong was a crusader for Justice and warrior for Truth, inspired by his Faith to serve his fellow citizens. O. K. Armstrong was the founding director of

• Language: English
• Publisher: American Freedom Publications LLC
• Release date: Oct 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647644116

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of Orland Kay Armstrong, husband, father, freelance journalist, writer, publisher and United States Congressman from the 6th District of Missouri. O. K. Armstrong was a crusader for Justice and warrior for Truth, inspired by his Faith to serve his fellow citizens.

Acknowledgements

It has been my distinct honor to develop this biography at the request of the Armstrong Family.  It could not have been completed without the direct encouragement and involvement of O. K. Armstrong Jr. (Kay) and his brothers, Milton and Stanley Armstrong as well as the writings of their youngest brother, the late Dr. Charles Lindbergh Armstrong.

I would also like to acknowledge the encouragement and prayers provided by my wife, Pamela, as well as her recollections of the Armstrong family as fellow members of University Heights Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

TABLE OF CONTENTS

OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

MISSOURI BORN

World War One: The Great War

Post-War Service

The move to Florida

The Love of His Life

Back to Missouri

Florida Calls Again

The Lindbergh Connection

The Lure of the Ozarks

Freelance Journalist

The Dream House

The Great Depression

CRUSADER FOR JUSTICE

CRUSADER FOR PEACE

Louise Armstrong Passing

The Changing of the Guard

Back to Politics

The Korean War

The Cold War

A Slap at THE SOVIETS

Family Complexities

Falsely Accused and Vindication

EVANGELICAL CRUSADER

O.K.’s Post Vietnam War Analysis

FINAL COMMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DISCLAIMER

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WORKS CITED

NOTABLE BOOKS

OTHER REFERENCES

INDEX

OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

BOOTS TO BOGIES TO BRONZE: The Authorized World War II

                                                        Biography of 2LT Jack C. Pyatt

THE MORAL CASE FOR AMERICAN FREEDOM

OZARK COUNTY HEART: Boyhood Memories of a Dora Missouri

                                            Farm

A WAKEFUL WATCH: The Authorized Biography of Charles

                                      Lindbergh Armstrong

HEARTLAND REBELLION

THE SILENT SECOND: The Biography of Martin Capages-

                                      Captain USMC

EPIPHANY: Before Time Zero- Faith of an Engineer

Why the Green New Deal is a Bad Deal for America

freedom oR SOCIALISM? The Millennial Dilemma

STARBOARD TACK: The Free Nation Makes a Course Correction

OF OSTRICHES AND LEMMINGS: The Silliness of Climate Change Hysteria

Foreword

By Milton McCool Armstrong, O. K. Armstrong Jr. and

William Stanley Armstrong

Our younger brother Charles had many heroes in his background, from our father, Orland Kay (O. K.) Armstrong, our father’s famous friend, Charles Lindbergh as well as we three older brothers, Milton, Kay, Stanley and our sister, Louise. Charles was an avid researcher and family historian. He carried on many discussions with our father and documented those in writing. When Charles passed away, we took action to have Charles’ biography and his research writings on our family history memorialized by Dr. Martin Capages Jr. and American Freedom Publications LLC. The book entitled A WAKEFUL WATCH was the result.

That book reaffirmed our belief that our family was blessed with a father who was a true crusader, a leader with rare courage and clarity of vision, who championed the cause of freedom, democratic government and human rights of peoples near and far.

The foundation of it all was a mission that he was destined to have some important role in bettering the country. Bettering its people, the world, too. But he didn’t see his mission as being an evangelist; it wasn’t that. It was more like evangelism of democracy, freedom and liberty. Milton McCool Armstrong.

It was amazing to watch Dad speak to an audience. He would have the audience fall in love with him and his words and be swayed by them. O. K. Armstrong Jr.

Our dad hated war and always opposed what he deemed to be a senseless intervention into a foreign war. But when he came to the Vietnam Conflict, his opinion was, ‘if the United States had to fight a war, then let’s win it.’  Dad told a reporter in 1966, ‘Every possible military means should be taken to win the war in Vietnam as soon as possible.’ One of the most important and useful lessons I learned from my father was that he was comfortable around anybody, rich, poor, religious, non-religious, Democrat, Republican, and I adopted it in my life. William Stanley Armstrong.

A close friend to the Armstrong family for almost 50 years, Dr. Durward G. Hall (also a U. S. Congressman from Missouri) would say:

O. K. Armstrong was a flamboyant person who was likely to draw lightning and fire. He was a great man who contributed to his community and served well the people he represented. He paid all possible rent for the space he occupied on Earth.

Preface

Orland Kay Armstrong was a man of great character and discipline. A native of Missouri, his lifetime encompassed many events and he accomplished much. However, as with most reluctant heroes, his story has been essentially untold. When I was asked to develop the biography of O. K. Armstrong’s youngest son, Charles Lindberg Armstrong, I was initially overwhelmed by the sheer mental capacity of this younger son of the U. S. Congressman from Missouri. Over the course of the research and writing of the son’s story, I became intrigued by the underlying story of Charles’s father. Charles writings were the starting point for telling the real and complex story of the Show-Me State’s heroic, but often crusading warrior, the Honorable Orland Kay Armstrong.

From the original material reviewed, to include handwritten editorial comments made by his brother, Kay, on Charles’ typewritten text, this family was extraordinary in their love for one another. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Scottish heritage of this family as related to me by Kay Armstrong.  The Armstrong Clan were the defenders of the Scottish Borders.  They were an exceedingly rough bunch with a reputation for greatness in battle that was tarnished by a tendency toward brutality and criminality.  The motto of the Armstrong Clan is, I remained unvanquished, and their coat of arms is presented in a fitting manner on the cover of this book.

Charles Armstrong had a wonderful way with words and phrases. One that I became particularly fond of relates well to this noble American family. Life can be beautiful; It is bountiful, if not always materially, and it is brief.  Everyone should try to fix his or her helm on gratitude for life and its blessings, but to do so takes a wakeful watch.

Orland Kay Armstrong was referred to as O. K., by his friends. According to his younger son Charles, his father exemplified that the fundamental personality is delivered with the baby and that individuals are alloys of genetic ore fused and tempered in the crucible of experience. For him, leadership was an inborn and life-defining trait, evident to all during his first decade of life, and a positive pole to the negative one of my grandfather ‘Calvin’s personal weaknesses. My father’s relatives, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, associates and enemies were unanimous: They had never known a more natural leader. As one of them put it, ‘O. K. led, and if somebody didn’t like it, he led anyway.’ Charles would relate that his father was a crusader who never had much to do with doubt, but who more than once failed to seize the moment.

The contribution of O. K. Armstrong has gone unrecognized even in the state of his birth, Missouri. Here you have a man who fought for the recognition of African-Americans as equal citizens before there was a Civil Rights movement. He brought to the forefront the plight of Native Americans and proposed corrective actions. He went out of his way to treat all races and creeds evenly and to correct injustice. He stood up to the Soviet Union and was swatted down by the mainstream press and his own political party. He has been essentially overlooked as an American hero. Consider the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. This journalism school is one of the oldest formal journalism schools in the world. Today, the School provides academic education and practical training in all areas of journalism and strategic communication for undergraduate and graduate students across several media including television and radio broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, photography, and new media. The school also supports a robust advertising and public relations curriculum. I am proud to say that both my sister Cheryl and my granddaughter Jordan are graduates of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

The school opened on September 14, 1908. Its founding was urged by Joseph Pulitzer, following lobbying by Walter Williams, the editor of the Columbia (Missouri) Herald and a university curator. Williams became the official founder of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and would go on to become the President of the University.

In 1981, the school was ranked the top journalism school in the country. It is an outstanding school that touts some notable alumni. While the list includes a former U.S. Representative from Texas's 24th district and two movie stars (including Academy Award winner Brad Pitt), it does not include the Congressman from Missouri’s 6th District, a graduate from Mizzou’s School of Journalism whose mentor was Walter Williams, a man selected by Williams to found the University of Florida’s School of Journalism, and a man who would become the Reader’s Digest most prolific journalist and investigative reporter in history. To date, The University of Missouri School of Journalism does not show O. K. Armstrong as a notable alumnus. This book is intended to set the record straight.

Much of the material in this chronical of O. K. Armstrong was previously published in the biography of Charles Lindbergh Armstrong entitled A WAKEFUL WATCH that was published in 2018. Following that publication, more information on Orland Kay Armstrong has become available from the Armstrong family and from the Repository of The State Historical Society of Missouri. Some of that additional material has been included in SHOW-ME WARRIOR.

Martin Capages Jr. PhD

Author of A WAKEFUL WATCH

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

One key to the Armstrong story is the relationship of O. K. Armstrong, to the famous Lone Eagle, Charles Augustus Lindbergh (or Lucky Lindy). This will be discussed in later paragraphs and Chapters 9 and 15 of this book. The son of a southern Missouri minister, Orland Kay Armstrong graduated summa cum laude from Drury College in Springfield, Missouri. He was also a flyer and had served as a pilot during World War One. After the war, he earned his law degree at Cumberland University in Tennessee, and went on to earn a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, studying under Walter Williams, the Dean of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.  He then moved to Florida.

Orland Kay Armstrong 1961

In Florida, O. K. Armstrong continued his string of successes. In fact, Walter Williams came to the University of Florida to install Armstrong as the first head of the University’s Department of Journalism.  The 1928 University yearbook, the Seminole, reported: "The College of Commerce and Journalism was established as the School of Business and Journalism in 1925. For the first year it operated under the College of Arts and Sciences with the Dean of the College in charge. Beginning with the first semester of 1926 a special director was appointed, and the School began to operate as a unit separate from the College of Arts and Sciences. In the Spring of 1927, the Board of Control created the College of Commerce and Journalism out of this unit with a dean and faculty of its own and made it co-equal in every respect with the other colleges of the University.

O. K. Armstrong had also worked as a freelance journalist for several newspapers and national magazines in the mid-1920s. Returning to Missouri in 1929, O. K. first entered politics the next year in an unsuccessful run for a seat in the state senate. Armstrong tried again in 1932 and, in a year dominated by Democratic landslides from the White House to the state house, he became one of only ten Republicans elected to the Missouri House of Representatives. He would serve in the House until 1936 and then again from 1942 to 1944. Armstrong would continue his journalism career even while in the state legislature, some of his reporting would have national ramifications. One article, which gained him notoriety, was a rare 1927 interview with Charles Lindbergh for Boys' Life magazine. After that interview, the two aviators, both with Missouri ties, became close friends. They would work together as patriots with a vision to keep the United States out of another world war. In this endeavor they would be unsuccessful, but not due to their own actions.  It would be History that would have the final say. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 would change both Lindbergh’s and Armstrong’s position on the matter.

O. K. Armstrong was elected to serve one term in the U.S. House of Representatives for Missouri from January 1951 to January 1953.  He also received many other honorary degrees before he passed away on April 15, 1987, in